


Shatter

by RennIreigh



Series: Patchouli [10]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25784674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RennIreigh/pseuds/RennIreigh
Summary: In which everything Sabrina has worked for abruptly comes under threat.
Series: Patchouli [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/22751
Kudos: 2





	1. Demonstration

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a hard author to keep up with. This series has spanned 15 years. This chapter- not the rest of Shatter, just half of this chapter- has spent about 7 of those years standing in between what's come before and the "after" I've had written since before the end of "Equilibrium." "Patchouli," as a work, is now complete. The rest is soon to follow.

"You ought to meet my brother," Sabrina said, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow. "The two of you would get along remarkably well."

_((Will?))_ Mewtwo asked, stretching his arms and sinking down into lotus position with a sigh.

He, too, looked tired. It was nice to finally have a sparring partner who was an _equal_. _Who is better than I,_ she thought to herself. She excused herself the admission: it granted her the right to pride, as she noted the subtle slump of his muscles.

"He as well," she said, "but I meant Morty. He would appreciate your great attempts at provoking me into whatever choice of emotion you find amusing on a given day, and once you started provoking _him_ , I would enjoy the aftermath."

_((Schadenfreude is hardly becoming))_

"Neither is continually poking at me by manifesting the voice of my mother, but that does not seem to overly concern you."

_((Ah, but look at all the progress you're making))_

"Yes, every time you conjure her shade I send crystallized plasma at it even faster than the time before. Tell me, is it meant to be therapeutic?"

_((Deliberate obstinacy is unbecoming, as well))_

He was still provoking her, and she knew it, but she let it ride. They had both done well this session. Training with him _had_ been enlightening, although she'd never tell him, and she took satisfaction that he was learning as well. It had been a month since he'd last let his considerable power escape him, although the scars on the cavern wall would take a hundred years of calcification to heal. Soon they'd be able to take their sparring matches outside Cerulean Cave without risk to the surrounding area. She was thinking about Cinnabar Island to start- if nothing else, it would be a sober reminder of what _he_ was working to master.

"I will be off," she said instead. "This moronic Exhibition..."

_((A shrewd idea))_ Mewtwo said. She'd filled him in the prior week, announcing that she needed no practice in feeling irritation, as there was no point in sublimating it against abject stupidity. _((A show of communal strength while meanwhile eyeing up potential recruits against a common threat? It's nothing more than a training session))_

"We will have to agree to disagree on the notion of a 'common threat,'" Sabrina said. She hadn't asked Mewtwo his thoughts on the Team, although she expected they were significant, complex, and earth-shakingly justified. She was saving that for Cinnabar Island.

_((I am amenable to doing so))_ Mewtwo rose from lotus position, stretching again. _((Until next time, then))_

She nodded, and turned to leave.

  
  


It _was_ moronic, and at least she found no disagreement in Celadon. Koga, too, disliked the disruption to his routine. Surge admitted he wouldn't mind showing cocky kids that "low-ranking Gym Leader" didn't translate to "wimpy pushover," but said if nothing else the timing was bad.

"I suspect that's entirely Lance's point in scheduling it," Koga pointed out. "He's smart enough to know that the Team is in a position to move forward, and that we _have_ to, considering the Cinnabar business coming so soon on the heels of Silph."

Sabrina clenched her jaw- any mention of Silph still reminded her of the lingering twinges of pain in her spine- but Koga was still speaking. "And there's some suspicion of the Game Corner, still."

"He's not an idiot," Surge grudgingly pointed out.

"There are also Clan considerations," Sabrina said, then paused and touched her hand to her forehead as Giovanni came into the office. Surge rose, and waited until the Boss had settled into his chair before sitting back down. Giovanni took a moment to adjust the things on his desktop- to put the pen parallel to the notebook, the notebook at right angles to the silver photo frame- before he spoke.

"Continue, Sabrina. Clan considerations to the Exhibition, I assume you mean?"

Sabrina nodded. "I imagine they must weigh on Lance's mind. He not only stands as Champion, but he stands to inherit as Speaker for the Dragon Clan. The Elite and its role in the political matters are transient to the Clans. Both have been powers for longer and Gravekeeper, at least, is not at risk of coming under any measure of intra-regional unity." She permitted herself a smirk. "To Draco and Agatha, the Elite- the League as a whole- have always stood as a metaphor for Clan power. Blackthorn will watch him for a show of strength; Ecruteak and Lavender will watch him for a show of weakness."

"Is that a power dynamic Gravekeeper would seek to exploit?"

"If Lance fails to show effectiveness in 'stamping out the Rocket threat'?" She let sarcasm color her voice. "Oh, _yes_. Considering that it was his idea to start with to band the League together as a formal continent-wide organization. If he failed... It would start with his position as Champion. The Clan would call for a reorganization of the Elite; Agatha would certainly advocate for one of my siblings to take his place, and Ecruteak would naturally second it regardless of whatever Morty expressed as his point of view. Depending on how roundly they failed to contain us, Dragon might also quietly promote Clair to take Lance's place."

Giovanni steepled his fingers on his desk. "We must consider this after we take Goldenrod and Saffron, then. If the Clans continue to believe that the other is a threat to their continuity, we should encourage it. After all, what is a transfer of financial power to dynasties who concern themselves with more spiritual matters?"

"I cannot speak for Dragon-" Sabrina began cautiously.

"Naturally."

"Gravekeeper would support any efforts they saw as destabilizing Dragon's influence in either region, but particularly in Johto."

"Do you mean Gravekeeper as a whole, or do you mean Agatha specifically?" Koga asked. "Your pardon, but we must look beyond the current Clan leadership, in consideration of their age."

"She will arrange matters such that she lives until she finds a scion to her standards, or else is ousted," Sabrina said flatly. "The latter is more likely."

"Who takes over?" Surge asked. "Who's the smart money on?"

"Morty, under duress." She paused, considering his likely reaction if confronted with Team Rocket as the neighbor of Lavender Tower. "It would be to our advantage to be in place well before that."

"Then we continue as planned," Giovanni said. "Goldenrod and Saffron at once. Quick, and this time, _decisive._ Make the Elite split their time between the regions. After, we will continue to explore the options as the Clans are concerned, as a means of effective consolidation."

He stood. "And in the meantime, this wretched Exhibition. Do your best not to lose to any snot-nosed brats, will you? It would be an embarrassment."

"Particularly as _those_ children are likely to be in attendance," Koga pointed out.

Giovanni's hand ghosted over the holster at his hip. " _Particularly_ do not lose to them."

-

It would have been easier to live up to that promise if they had had firm identities to pin to those children, Sabrina thought the next week, evaporating the sweat from her brow as she walked off the stadium floor.

_Exhibition matches._ Of all the wretched distractions. Of all the things Lance could have come up with. Gym Leader against Gym Leader to start, not for dominance but as a display of training, the finely honed machine of the League on show. Then specialty against specialty, Lorelei's Lapras roaring triumph and Pryce turning his back and leaving the floor, then specialty _with_ specialty, Sabrina and Will and two Alakazam leading meditations and tuning minds. The practice with Mewtwo had been worthwhile, although it had raised her expectations to a level none of her new students could meet- but there was potential there, she mused. She'd found herself enjoying teaching, watching her new students fumble hungrily with the new techniques, smiling inwardly as she considered whether sharing a Pokemon's teaching with humans was a way of returning her practice to Mew, after all.

She had almost relaxed into the rhythm, enjoying the master classes if nothing else, until the melee began. Any trainer in the league signing up to battle any other. Gym Leader, Gym Acolyte, the girl next door, the Elites. Lance had been careful to warn trainers that the Exhibition was abstracted from League rules. "This is an opportunity to hone your skills," he'd reminded them at the grand banquet the night before it started. "Your successes here are your own, your losses your own, to learn from. This is not a tournament, and there will be no victories, no badges, no League points. Just yourselves, your Pokemon, and a chance like none other to observe a mix of styles and techniques. Your matches end with handshakes."

_And with eyes on you,_ it went unsaid. _And with a chance for the Elite themselves to see what you're made of._

Naturally this had been hard for some of the attendees to digest. And certainly not a single Gym Leader felt prepared to lose. _An embarrassment,_ Giovanni had called it, but even Erika's eyes had narrowed at the thought. "An absolute affront to my professional pride," she'd declared over dinner.

They'd taken to watching each other's matches out of support for their colleagues. So, walking off the stadium floor that morning, Sabrina saw Koga in the audience, and gave him the most imperceptible nod.

Watching out of support. And evaluating their challengers.

If the children who had toppled Silph Co. over Sabrina's spine were here, were waiting for another chance- then she was ready for them.

In a sea of determined minds it would have been nearly impossible to screen for the particular flavor that craved that brand of domination. _Would they call it justice?_ she wondered, teleporting her PokeBalls back to her temporary quarters high within the walls of Indigo and popping the latches open, so thatj her Pokemon could refresh themselves at their leisure. _Is_ _it righteousness that_ _drives them?_ _Would any of them call it revenge?_

She met Koga at the stadium door. "Well fought," he complimented.

She shrugged.

"Not the level of talent we had thought to see."

"No." _((Not that one, either))_

"Nor my battle this morning. I spoke to Surge earlier." They fell into step together, down the corridor to yet another glass-walled stadium floor. "His experience has been the same."

"Perhaps those we have fought have had more to learn," she suggested. _((Then they are certainly keeping a low profile))_

"I'd thought we'd see challengers of a different caliber." Koga paused. "That is, I thought that we'd be sought out."

_((It does beg the question of what they have to hide))_

"Or perhaps the sort of talent we had hoped to see are simply learning from others," Koga mused, as though finishing his thought. 

"One hopes that they will take the opportunity  _to_ learn, as it is meant," Sabrina agreed. She quirked up a corner of her lip. "Better that than bringing Indigo Plateau to the ground." 

"A likely outcome of so much adolescence in one place," he said drily. 

Sensing the vibrations ahead of her personal shield, Sabrina pulled up short and flung an arm in front of Koga, narrowly averting a collision with Karin as she rounded a corner at speed. Karin lifted a hand in greeting, brushing a strand of tousled silver hair behind one ear. "Enjoying the madness?" 

Sabrina raised an eyebrow. "Yours is a happy nature. Where are you headed?" 

"Oh, some punk Gravekeeper kid threw a glove at Clair, I'm off to watch him get his ass kicked," she said, and beamed. "It'll be worth the price of admission of this whole thing." 

"Not your idea, then?" Koga asked. 

"What, crushing Indigo under the weight of so much pubescent humanity? No, thank you. Hardly room to breathe, let alone think more than two coherent thoughts in succession. Here, walk with me, I haven't seen you the whole time." 

Koga bowed. "Good to see you, Karin." 

"You're not coming?" 

He gestured down the corridor. "Erika's fighting down this way." 

"Anyone decent?" 

"Oak's nephew, apparently. So she gathered from the name on the schedule. If he's any good, she intends to make him prove it."

"Well, enjoy that show. Best of luck to her- fight for the League's honor and all that."

Caught in her sister's whirlwind, Sabrina lifted a hand to Koga and turned around. "Have you seen any challengers who may have actually been worth your time?" 

Karin considered. "Not many. Tried teaching a class on conducting energy the other day, got all of three people. One has it, I told her she should spend some time in Mount Moon, hone that. And the other two tried, at least, so there's that. Battled a green-haired girl the other day I'd like to see again. How about you? Will said you and he taught a good class." 

She shrugged. "Some potential, at least. None of those who have challenged me have been worth my time." 

"I told Lance what he ought to have done was offer combination matches- since it's an exhibition and all. Suspend the rules on Pokemon not being directed to attack trainers. Bring in any of us who have powers and do it as a demonstration match of how we can work in synchrony. That's where the magic is, after all- what our kinds can do together." 

"Hm." Sabrina considered. "He rejected it as dangerous on Clan grounds, I assume?" 

"Right in one. Thought it might be mildly problematic if it turned into a grand demonstration of a cohort of Gravekeepers wiping the floor with Dragons, and so on." 

"Do you suppose it would be better or worse that it's the cohort of Gravekeeper exiles?" 

"For the Dragons? Or for the Clan?" Karin asked, pausing with her hand on the stadium door. She threw her head back and laughed. "Worse." 

-

When they met back up again in Surge's suite of rooms that night, a quick glance showed they'd all had the same experience. Surge asked anyway. "No sign of them?" 

"No. And Erika had no one of note." 

Sabrina shook her head. 

Surge slammed his fist on the nightstand. "What are they hiding from, then?"

"Biding their time," Koga said. "They must be." 

"Or they chose not to come, and are taking advantage to do their own investigations," Sabrina mused, giving voice to the thought that had occurred to her more than once as she had searched the packed halls and stadia for a glimmer of _something_ beyond the ordinary.

"Why, though? Why not be here? Take an opportunity to try to take us down?" 

"We assume they know who we are," she countered. "We assume they have seen us all, and know we're all a part of the League. I contend they cannot have recognized all of us." 

Koga leaned forward, ticking names off on his fingers. "You, possibly, in Silph. But could they have seen you clearly?" 

"Let us assume they have." 

"We assume it. We can assume they have not identified me." 

Surge snorted. "Be some luck for them if they could put names to  _both_ your faces. Yours was bad luck, Sabrina, but if they saw Koga clearly he needs to retire." 

"Right. And you, Surge?" 

He shrugged. "No reason to think yes. So what, they maybe recognize one of us?"

Sabrina nodded. "If they do not believe that the Team has any connection to the League, they have no reason to pursue  _us_ , specifically. And if they have more interest in investigating the Team, then it is to their advantage to do it without official eyes."

"When the Meowth's away, and all that?" Surge asked. "Huh. Could be." 

"But for three children of particular talent to miss this training opportunity? It's a stretch, isn't it?" Koga said. 

"If their curiosity is stronger than their desire to train, there is an advantage to doing their own investigations while the League's attention is elsewhere. It is what I would do." 

Surge grimaced. "They better stay away from my gym." 

"We have people in Celadon, Saffron, and Viridian." 

"You left your team there?" 

"Of course." 

Surge barked a laugh. "Trust you to think of that. No wonder you're the Boss's favorite." 

She'd stopped having to control that faint blush some time ago. "It is what I would do," she repeated. "It is an advantage I could not overlook." 

"Well, tomorrow is another day," Koga said, standing up from his chair. He nodded goodnight at them in turn. "Don't lose," he added as he left.

Sabrina twitched the corner of her lip, following him. "I doubt that will be difficult." 

\- 

The next day found her in Ground Rules Stadium, the immense bowl in the raw earth glassed off from spectator seating. Giovanni, too, had his list of challengers, which he'd dispatched in his usual silence, doling out handshakes to those he deemed promising. Sabrina settled into the hard seat and watched the match begin. 

_Rather obvious to lead with Gyarados, and short-sighted_ she thought, watching the beast writhe in the river every stadium featured.  _Unless he's already fought here, and scouted the terrain, and knows his Pokemon's range._ Giovanni was expressionless, his Golem flexing his legs, then planting his feet more firmly in the ground. 

She leaned back in the seat, watching the rain of rocks plummet towards Gyarados, who slipped between them and used his mighty tail to bat the last towards Golem- which he caught easily and threw one-handed into the river. Sabrina saw it, the way to nullify the threat: dam the river, pen Gyarados inside of it, force the boy in the baseball cap to either make a stand from the patch of water left or recall his lead with no damage taken. 

The Gyarados saw it too, and his trainer shouted something unintelligible but the beast was already moving, scooping up water in his enormous mouth and blasting it in a wild spray at Golem. The rock Pokemon threw himself to the ground and rolled away, a streak in the mud, and returned to his dam, doggedly piling boulders scooped from the floor while Gyarados dived for more water. Sabrina's neighbor shook his head, turning to her. "What's he doing? That Golem's going to get wiped out." 

Gyarados surfaced and the crowd gasped, watching the sinuous beast thrash and tower out of the river, great head leaning down over Golem, rearing back and ready to blast another torrent of water. Giovanni just crossed his arms. Sabrina's neighbor yelled "Recall him, you idiot, he's going to get pounded!" 

And Gyarados's upper lip curled back, water droplets flying, and Golem lunged forward, and the crack of a Thunder Punch filled the stadium as Gyarados keened, water spraying wildly and hissing, steaming off of Golem's shell. The trainer cried out with his Gyarados as though he felt his Pokemon's pain, screaming "Blast him, Gyara, blast him!" 

The trainer in the next seat gaped and Sabrina smiled. "It is not wise to underestimate a Gym Leader," she said quietly, watching Golem swing a mighty arm and crack another Thunder Punch into Gyarados's jaw. 

The beast wavered, toppled, collapsed into PokeBall light, an Eevee leaping onto the field and throwing itself through the waves left in Gyarados's wake to come out as Vaporeon. He landed on the muddied earth of the stadium with water streaming from his mouth as he cavorted around Golem, firing pulses of water faster than Golem could move. Giovanni was ready, recalling Golem before he could collapse, sending out Beedrill with his deadly aim. Another stream of light, Vaporeon disappearing, an Aerodactyl taking to the air to plunge after Beedrill, a flash of something on Giovanni's face as Beedrill disappeared and Cloyster crashed into view with an Ice Beam ready. Aerodactyl dodged it, not fast enough, the tip of its tail freezing and the ice swallowing it whole. The boy with the baseball cap called him back before he hit the ground, sent out a Pikachu. 

Now Giovanni was smirking, the look of predatory pleasure he always found in an opponent he felt worthy, uncrossing his arms to recall Cloyster in a hail of ice shards and releasing Nidoqueen, who roared in readiness and struck the ground-

And the boy with the baseball cap beheld her, stood rigid as though everything had just fallen into place. Shouted, pointed- " _IT'S YOU!"_

_"_ What's he on about?" Sabrina's neighbor asked, and the boy yelled, "I SAW YOU IN CELADON! THE GAME CORNER! YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S BEHIND IT ALL!  _YOU'RE TEAM ROCKET!"_

And the Pikachu scampering across the field fired a cloud of lightning bolts- not at Nidoqueen but at Giovanni, and Nidoqueen roared too late, and Sabrina found herself gesturing wildly at empty air as she watched her Boss crumple to the ground. 


	2. Destruction

In those seconds her world narrowed: the boy in a ballcap, the gash in the floor, Nidoqueen roaring and Giovanni, Giovanni, grounded and collapsed and she could hear his heartbeat but not his breath as the boy with a ballcap drew in air to shout something else.

Before her mind knew what her legs were doing she was off the bleachers and she was running, she was teleporting, she landed near him still mid-stride and stumbled and rolled and covered his body with hers as she threw the shield up, deflecting the Pikachu’s lightning and sending it back. Under the violet light of her shield she could drown out a thousand screaming people on bleachers blocked from the arena floor- she could have blocked out the world.

“Sir,” she said, voice wavering, her fingers scrabbling for his pulse. “Sir. Boss. Giovanni.”

His pulse was strong but he didn’t respond.

She felt his lungs under her hand, layers deep in skin and bone, and she thought of them as hers, filled her lungs with air and filled his too. Breathe out, and his collapsed. Breathe in, and fill. Breathe out. Breathe in. She breathed air into their lungs until she was confident his body would do it on its own.

Her world widened: there was life to his body besides the rhythm of his heartbeat and lungs. She was no healer, but she knew how to check the body. _Just find what’s living,_ she thought abstractedly, her mind feeding the words back to her in her grandmother’s voice. _Find what’s living, and shine the sun on it._ He was no Rattata in her hand, but his lungs lived, his heart lived, his blood pumped uninterrupted. She held her hand over his skull, tested for life.

Found it strangled.

She might have screamed but she would never know for sure. Sabrina laid both hands on his head, and reached for anything living, reached past the dark tangles and masses, and found precious little.

It was enough, and it was precious.

Sabrina stood up, touched her throat to amplify her voice, and shouted- or maybe screamed- “ _Karin!”_

Indigo Plateau had not been silent since the boy in the ballcap had thrown out the word Rocket like a hand grenade. Between the referees assessing penalties for Pokemon attacking a trainer, the inevitable shrieking and sobbing, the lightning still careening around the stadium and bouncing off of the shield, the buzzing of the stands- _“_ _The Viridian Gym Leader?"--"Team Rocket_ _?!”-_ and the immediate appearance of every officer assigned to security detail, Karin barely heard Sabrina. But she did hear- because she’d been expecting it from the moment Giovanni went down.

Will gestured for her to sit down and Morty hissed “What are you doing?!” but Karin was on her feet and out of the stands and down the steps and straight into Lance’s outflung arm.

“Sit down, please,” he said.

“Someone is hurt down there!" she snarled.

“The police and the emergency team will handle it once the light-”

“Has the point where the _Viridian Gym Leader_ is hurt and quite potentially dying not quite gotten to you yet?” Karin snarled.

“Never mind the politics, have you noticed the _lightning?!_ ” Lance not-quite-shouted.

“I don’t give a-“

Sabrina cut off the argument with another amplified shout. “I need Karin Eveleth down here on this floor right now or so help me Mew I will bring this entire stadium down around all of our ears!”

Dead silence.

Into it, Sabrina yelled again. “ _Please!_ ” And then, her voice choked- “Karin.”

Karin shoved past Lance and ran into the shield she’d been expecting to extend to her, towards her sister and the man not moving on the floor.

“He isn’t dead,” Karin said brusquely, dropping to the floor next to Sabrina.

“Karin, look at his brain.”

“His brain can wait thirty seconds. Trust me. Be quiet and trust me, I’m a healer, I _know_. Are you aware that that screaming brat has just accused him of being the ringleader of Team Rocket in front of Absol and everyone else and he's made himself sound reasonable enough that they’re calling the Viridian police to break into his gym at the moment?”

Sabrina just looked at her. “Karin.”

“Sabrina, do you realize what’s going on?”

“He’s dying.” Her voice cracked, but she paid no attention.

“He’s not dead yet. Sabrina, listen to me. _What is in the Gym._ ”

“The Gym is not important!”

“ _The Gym is going to be important if it means the rest of his life is spent in a jail cell._ Because that’s going to change what we do here. Do you see?”

Sabrina saw, the three different likely futures rolling away in front of her like shimmering balls of yarn. She nodded, breathed in, _focused._ “The Gym… probably nothing. Unless they find the teleporter pad to…”

“And what are the odds?”

“I never should have installed that. He asked me to, and I told him about the risk, but I never should have-“

“Sabrina.”

She took a breath, stroked Giovanni’s hair with one finger. Absently. “They could find enough.”

“Enough to bring him down. You?”

“Not relevant.”

“What will it be like for him if he lives and is convicted?”

“You can't do better than _if_ he lives _?!”_

“Sabrina, stay with me here. _Is he better off alive or dead._ ”

Her heart in her throat strangled her voice and the yarn she’d visualized vanished. “You’re not saying-“

“ _I am not going to let him die._ Not now. He is dying, Sabrina, I can’t reverse the damage to his brain. I can give him a few years, but I can’t give him more. We can control how he spends those years- in a cell or quietly, undercover, free. Do you see?”

Sabrina’s finger caught in a wisp of hair over his temple. She thought about the Rocket R, thought about the color red, thought about Silph and the Game Corner and Mewtwo and the color black and suit coats, thought about books and a revolver and a trench in the ground. She thought about the quiet voice that said _We were lucky_ when they weren’t and _I have never understood you_ when it understood everything.

She nodded slowly. “It may be better if… if no one knows he lived through this.”

“We can make them think that.”

“Karin, can you heal him?” Sabrina swiped a hand across her blurry eye; it came away wet.

Karin gripped her sister’s shoulder. “I want you to understand what I see,” she said.

“He is dying.”

“He has six months now. I can give him a few years. Without regular medical care in the meantime- either a healer or chemotherapy- it’s hard to say how many.”

“I know,” Sabrina said. “I saw it. He is too far gone for me to…”

“I know. But you deal with life. I can take his death away for a little while.” Karin paused. “Sabrina, is he going to want this?”

Somehow Giovanni’s hand had ended up in hers; she held it a little tighter. “I don’t know.”

“He’s going to have to go into hiding and watch from afar as they take the organization apart. I don’t know what you all do, but it’s a hard thing to watch your life’s work crumble.”

_I know,_ Sabrina thought.

“Let’s get him stabilized,” Karin said decisively. “We’ll get him somewhere quiet and buy you some time to make that call.”

Sabrina nodded. “He’s only unconscious now.”

“He hit his head when he fell. He’ll be out for awhile, and it’s going to be okay. Maybe better that way. Let’s get him off the Gym floor.” Karin paused, and for the first time she looked up and through the violet translucence at a Pokemon they hadn’t seen nor heard throwing herself against the shield. “You might want to sort out his Nidoqueen before she hurts herself.”

Sabrina’s eyes never left Giovanni’s face as she reached behind her with an open Pokeball and recalled the great saurian before she had time to ram the shield again.

“Let’s take him somewhere quiet,” Karin said again. She looked hard at Sabrina. “You know what you’re doing?”

Sabrina didn’t answer.

“You’re crying.”

She hadn’t noticed.

Somewhere in her consciousness Sabrina understood that Karin stepped out of the shield, shouted directions, and bullied her way through the gathered Elite, the paramedics with their stretchers, the Indigo police force. It was very far away. She felt his hand, heard his heartbeat. When Karin touched her shoulder she took her sister’s hand (she still had Giovanni’s, although when she’d picked it up she wasn’t sure) and teleported them.

Karin had chosen well- a small room in the Indigo staff apartments. Sabrina floated Giovanni onto the bed and made herself busy. Shoes off and on the floor. He was a fastidious man, no shoes on the bed. Would he want his suit coat on or off? Would he be cold enough to want a blanket over him?

At some point she recognized that Karin had left the room, and after that she set herself on the side of the bed, waiting for him to wake up.

Sabrina did not know how long it had been or what time it was when she heard a familiar knock on the door- the abridged Morse “all’s well” the Rockets used when moving through a building. “Come in,” she said.

Koga shut the door behind him. “Blaine is making the necessary phone calls. The Game Corner will be ready to detonate shortly, if it will be required. We have Fleet members from his Gym in place with their Pokemon to cause the earthquake. Surge will have nothing to do with it and is refusing to speak with me.”

“Not surprising. Saving his own skin?”

“Most likely. Are you at all concerned about yours?” He pulled the room’s lone chair to the bedside, sitting down next to Sabrina.

“Not particularly.” She paused. “Karin suggested that it might be better if the public believed him dead.” Koga didn’t say anything immediately, so she added, “He is very sick.”

“How sick?”

“Karin estimated a few months. She believes that she can heal him enough to grant him a few years.” Still no response. “I do not know what he would want us to do.” Silence. “Your thoughts, please.”

Koga laid a hand on her knee, and when she pulled her gaze off of Giovanni’s face for the first time since he’d walked in, he caught her eyes and looked down at her hand. Giovanni’s hand. How had it gotten into hers again?

“Is this how it is?” he asked.

She didn’t know how to answer, but she nodded slowly. “I believe so.”

“Then I owe you an apology that is now some time overdue for an accusation I once made, and I am unqualified to answer your question.”

“That is unhelpful.”

Koga looked at the ceiling. “You have always known him better than any of us. Known what he meant by his orders, known what he wanted to accomplish, known what he would say. I could not say what he would want you to do.”

Sabrina let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “I do not know that I know the answer, either.”

Koga was quiet for a moment, then asked, “How long?”

“Excuse me?”

“You and the Boss.”

Sabrina considered, and finally gestured with her free hand. “I’m not sure.”

“Longer than you think, probably.”

She had no answer to that, so she changed the subject. “Who is making the decision about detonating the Game Corner?”

“Even before knowing that circumstances are what they are, I had thought that that would be your call to make.”

“I will have to learn about the investigation. But we should remove any personal effects and the Pokemon prizes from the casino as a precaution. Of course, it would be ideal if we did not have to do it.”

“For multiple reasons, not least that my wife’s Gym would greatly dislike a sudden earthquake,” Koga said dryly.

“We planned the artificial fault line around the Gym, although I make no promises regarding the state of her windows.”

“We?”

Sabrina nodded her head towards Giovanni in answer.

“What do you want to do with the Team?” Koga asked.

“You are asking _me_?”

“It isn’t my Team.”

“It is not mine.”

“At this point, you’re the closest to a Boss we’re getting.”

“He’ll wake up.”

“It might be better if he stays unconscious for longer than we can leave the team at loose ends.”

_Focus, Sabrina._ She recalled her brain. “Pass the word that they are to disperse and lay low,” she said slowly. “I will sort out their last paychecks, but it may take some time as I imagine that access to his finances will be restricted shortly. I will have to be creative.”

“So the Team is at its end?”

“I will check with him when he wakes up.” She swallowed, thinking of her uniform sweater, washed soft, worn comfortably around the elbows, her scarlet letter. “It may be so.”

“Where will that leave you?”

“Pardon?”

“I have my family and my Gym,” he clarified. “Blaine has that, ah, friend of his and the legal side of his research. Surge has…”

“His skin.”

“That. You, though, the Team is your life.”

She shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t directly attached, through veins and bone and skin and fingertips, to Giovanni’s hand. “I imagine I will have my Gym still.”

“Is that going to be enough?”

She had no answer.

“If he lives, and goes into hiding, you won’t be able to meet,” Koga said, and he was trying to be gentle but Sabrina’s answer was a snarl.

“I know that.”

“I am worried about you, Sabrina.”

She shrugged one shoulder again and said simply, “I’m worried about him.”

Long after Koga had left, as the moon began a slow descent, Sabrina finally fell asleep sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning up against the headboard, still holding his hand.

The next day Karin dragged her out of his room for long enough to meet with two officers. Her hand was stiff and felt strange uncurled from his. When they asked her how she knew Giovanni, and why she’d stayed closeted with him all night (she wondered why they’d noticed,) she said “Through the League.”

When they asked her how they’d become personally acquainted to such a degree that she had threatened to tear down Indigo Plateau to get him a healer, it took her a long pause before she was able to say “We used to read together.”

When they asked her if she knew anything about his involvement with Team Rocket, she said “I doubt it.” When they asked her if they could search her Gym, she offered them the key and said she’d prefer they avoid her personal quarters but gave them the directions to the teleporter pad anyway.

She spent the night on the side of his bed again.

On the third day she found out through Karin that the Viridian City Gym had been found to have teleporter pads connecting to a location outside of the city limits. A squad would investigate that afternoon after the teleporter had been checked for safety.

That afternoon, an earthquake ripped through Celadon City. Residents called it a miracle and newspapers called it “as if by design” that no one, not even nearby residents, were close enough to be seriously injured in the explosion of the Game Corner. Blaine, a well-regarded researcher whose type specialty as the fire-loving leader of the Cinnabar Island Gym lent him an interest in combustion, was consulted in the investigation. He pronounced the cause to be unfortunate improper chemical storage.

The squad of trained police personnel prepared to investigate the destination of the teleporter pads in a storage closet of the Viridian Gym. After the teleporter was pronounced safe for use by expert psychic consultant Will of the Elite Four, the squadron activated it, and found themselves in Rock Tunnel, surrounded by a number of highly aggravated Graveler breeding pairs. When they returned quite precipitously to the Gym, they found that certain items seized as evidence, including personal effects and several PokeBalls, were not where they’d left them, as though someone had tried to steal them but been interrupted. The cadets who had been set to patrol the gym for intruders swore on the entirety of the pantheon that they had been attentive and that no one had entered.

Sabrina slept heavily that night at Giovanni’s bedside, worn out from teleportation, managing the thoughts of an entire city, long-distance teleporter reprogramming, and the exchange of certain small items with decoys.

On the fourth day since the battle, Koga brought her food, assuming (correctly) she hadn’t eaten the day before.

“What is the plan?”

Sabrina picked at the rice. She’d worked hard to keep Giovanni’s body stable, even thriving despite unconsciousness, but had no appetite herself. “They seem to be off of our tail.”

“For now.”

“For now,” she agreed.

“How is he doing?”

“Well enough. We should make a decision soon.”

“Sabrina,” Koga said gently. “You say that as though you believe there is a decision to be made.”

“There isn’t one,” she agreed.

“Where will you take him?”

She almost smiled. “Did you _really_ think I gave the police directions to my actual private quarters in my Gym?”

On the fifth day after the battle, Karin Eveleth, Third Elite, self-styled Mistress of Midnight and a healer of a rather greater than modest reputation, pronounced Giovanni Matricciani, Viridian City Gym Leader, dead of a traumatic brain injury sustained in an accident in a match at Indigo Plateau. If the hospital doctors in Saffron City were not satisfied at being deprived per the Elite’s request of such a newsworthy case to autopsy, they did not share their thoughts.

On the sixth day, Ecruteak’s Gym Leader Morty stated that as Giovanni Matricciani had no living family and had left no disposition for his body, Morty would arrange for his burial in the Ecruteak graveyard. Under the circumstances, Morty felt it best for there to be no public funeral as he feared it would attract rather the wrong kind of attention.

In speaking to Sabrina afterwards, he very carefully did not say anything he wanted to, and instead wrapped one of his sister’s hands around a bowl of rice and the other around a pair of chopsticks. She looked haggard; she had slept fitfully for the last two days, and eaten almost nothing.

When he left, Morty gripped her shoulder. He didn’t say “I hope this is worth it.” Instead, he was just as honest. He said “You’re always welcome in Ecruteak.”

That night, several clerks at the Indigo Insulae Bi-regional Bank made a series of astoundingly elementary mistakes as related to the accounts of one Mr. Matricciani (and aliases.) In the meantime, former Rocket employees were advised to deposit their last paychecks into local banks rather than their main accounts at I2B2.

It was generally accepted at Indigo Plateau that Will’s and Karin’s sister Sabrina, the Saffron Gym Leader, had always been a bit unusual, so when cleaning staff heard the sound of running water they merely assumed that she was choosing for some bizarre reason to shower in the room where the dead man still lay before his transport to Ecruteak. Under this pretense Sabrina floated Giovanni’s body over the bathtub and carefully sponge-bathed his chest, arms, and face. She re-dressed him in a clean shirt and coat from his suitcase, straightened the photograph she'd brought from his room showing the little red-haired boy, and re-checked and strengthened his vital signs. She fell asleep on the side of his bed again.

And on the seventh day, accompanied by healer Karin of the Elite Four and neutral party Koga of the Fuchsia City Gym, Sabrina (in whose quarters police had found nothing suspicious save an unnatural cleanliness, almost as though she hardly lived in Saffron at all) took a dead man by the hand and teleported him for burial at Ecruteak City.

Karin and Koga returned to Indigo Plateau by Murkrow and Crobat, respectively, after Karin performed what she called “traditional last rites.” The presence of Dark energy went unremarked-upon. Feeling Giovanni wake up, Sabrina teleported to Saffron City, landing in a small room under the eaves with several windows, but no doors.

She floated Giovanni onto her narrow bed and waited for him to open his eyes.

Sabrina expected his first question to be “Where am I” or “What happened.” Instead, it was “Why are you here?” before he clutched a hand over his mouth and gestured for the wastebasket Sabrina was already handing him.

“The nausea is normal,” she said, one hand on his back. “Or rather, it is to be expected. Karin said it was likely.” She was vaguely aware that she’d just said the same thing three times. “You’ve been out for a week. Things have been… very complicated.” When he finished, she teleported the mess in the wastebasket to a public trash can outside of her gym and said “Let me get you a glass of water.”

He sat quietly and sipped slowly as Sabrina summarized the week from a chair by his bedside. Finally he sighed and said, “Sabrina, how long have you known I am ill?”

“Excuse me?”

He set the glass on the nightstand. “I am a dying man.” He considered. “Apparently I am now a dead one.”

Sabrina felt her heart in her throat and her stomach weighting her down. “If I made the wrong decision, sir-“

He covered her hand with his. “I think we’re rather overqualified for you to be calling me ‘sir,’ Sabrina.” He laid his head back on the pillows, looking up at the ceiling. “I have always known that this might happen. Have they formally connected me with the Team yet?”

“I do not believe so. And I took the liberty of re-routing your personal teleporters to the Celadon base to lead somewhere more innocuous to remove ties to the explosion in Celadon, or indeed anything they might find there.”

“Then my son will know his father as a Gym Leader.”

“Excuse me?”

He gestured towards the photograph. She'd brought it to his bedside from the little apartment in Indigo, before that from the rooms he'd been allotted for himself, the only personal effect in a room of white sheets and black suits. “I have always intended to go looking for him. You know, some of my best operatives were unable to find him. He was kidnapped. Did I ever tell you that? His mother…” He drifted off, then made a conscious effort to resume. “I should have sent you. I’d have had him back years ago. But I’ll find him now…”

“I am not sure I understand, sir.” The honorific was reflexive.

“I am a dead man now,” he said. “A dead man walking… I was dying before, and now I am dead. I should find him sooner rather than later. I can look myself now…”

“Then you’re leaving.”

He looked at her then. “You knew I would have to, I am sure.”

She nodded. “You make it sound as though you’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Perhaps not tomorrow, under the circumstances. But it has been so many years…”

“It will take some doing to follow a trail that’s so cold.”

“It could be a lifetime.”

Sabrina felt a lump in her throat. “Let me help you.”

He patted her hand. “Your place is here, Sabrina.”

“But you said-“

“You cannot simply disappear into the company of a dead man. People will wonder. Tell me, Sabrina, what remains of the Team?”

“You are not asking me to-“

“Resurrect it? No. We played a good game-“ Here he smirked. “And we made a rather considerable amount of money and exerted no small influence on local politics. Indeed, members of the Elite Four seem to have aided and abetted the escape of a suspected criminal.” He shook his head against the pillows. “But I am placing the remains of the Team in your hands." 

"I cannot-"

" _I_ cannot," he said with finality. He took a breath. "I have let them come first for long enough. I always intended to find him. Sometime, before I died. When I…” He swallowed. “When I became someone he could be proud of. And now..."

And now.

She could only nod. And then, not because it was apropos but because she felt she had to say something, she said, “I took the liberty of removing your Pokemon from police custody.”

“Thank you. It will be good to have friends on the road.”

“You will want to reassure your Nidoqueen that you are alive.”

He nudged one shoulder in a gesture that was probably meant to be a shrug. “She was my starter. She can be… protective.”

She almost said _Let us protect you_ but knew, herself, how little either of them cared to be sheltered.

"You'll look after the Team for me." 

She took a deep breath. "I think it is as you say. We played a good game." 

He nodded. "Send them on their ways in silence. Protect those you can." 

She had a place for those with flair. Koga would absorb his team into his gym. Surge... “I will do what I can.”

“Good. They will not know to appreciate it, many of them, but they will in due time. If I’d-“ he stopped.

“If you’d what?”

“I was thinking of the merits of having a mentor. I’d have liked that as a child.” He shook his head. “My son… I do not know what kind of mentor he has found. I have never yet been the kind he should have had. I intended to be, before I…”

She didn’t know what to say to that.

Giovanni shifted, struggling to sit up against the pillows. She began to rise from her chair by his bedside to help him, but he waved her away. Finally he sighed, situated comfortably.

“When are you leaving, sir?”

“Don’t call me ‘sir,’ Sabrina.”

She just looked at him.

“Not immediately, I should think.” He patted the bed next to him with one hand, then reached out to her. “Won’t you stay with me until then?”

She swallowed, breathed down the lump in her throat, rose from the chair. She went to him. 


	3. Deliverance

The road stretched open before them, the dust mostly settled into the gravel on the surface. There was a breeze, but hardly enough to do more than stir the grass. The sun had only just begun to consider rising.

“You’re sure?” Sabrina asked again. She felt she’d asked the question a hundred times; she felt she could not ask it enough.

“You can’t throw your life away to follow a dead man,” Giovanni said, adjusting the weight of his pack. He looked strange out of uniform, in neat slacks and a gray cable sweater with elbow patches, of all things, PokeBalls studding the straps of his leather back pack. An older man in the clothes of a younger. Sabrina hardly recognized him until she looked at the way he stood- tall, shoulders back, chest open. Like a ruler. Her Boss.

And because it was time now, she said what she’d been wanting to, and not wanting to, for the last several days. “I could- you wouldn’t have to- I could keep you alive,” she said in a rush. “For longer. Not forever. But you wouldn’t-“

Giovanni smiled a little, and she didn’t recognize him again, not with that expression. “I’m a dead man already. But I’m still walking.” His smile vanished. “This is not to be construed as that I am content to be leaving you here.”

She said nothing. She could not think of anything to say- at least not anything she _could_ say.

Giovanni watched her for a moment, watched her inscrutable face and the way her hair moved in the faint wind. “We’re-“ and he stopped.

“Sir?”

Somewhere around their second day in Sabrina’s quarters, he resting, she contemplating a future as a Gym Leader with limited extracurriculars, both reading books from her little library as though nothing had changed- somewhere around then, he had given up on excising the honorific from her vocabulary.

“This,” he said, and he gestured to the space between their bodies. “We’re not the type of people for whom this happens. Are we?”

She wanted to ask if he was sure, but she knew already. The words stuck in her mouth, and she said nothing.

“It- It doesn’t last,” he said.

She wondered if it had even started.

“Say something,” he said, the words strained in his throat, stuck between his lungs. “Please.”

She dredged up the words from the morass of pride and fear. “Was it worth it?”

“Sabrina.” He choked out her name, lifted his hand- had he always moved like that, had his joints always staggered in motion? Was it new, or was it a sign of the disease? Should she have noticed? Could she have fixed it?

His arm stiff, he lifted a tendril of her hair, smoothed it behind her ear, the callus of his hand rough on her skin. His thumb brushed the back of her neck. She felt the torn edge of the skin beside his nail and it was that imperfection that moved her own hand to cover his against her jaw. For a fleeting instant his hand tensed under hers, then relaxed, the pads of his fingers light against her skin.

“Sir,” she said, or maybe her voice was a whisper.

She felt the pressure of his thumb tighten against her jaw, and it seemed to her that when he took his hand away it was a sudden effort. She felt the breeze against her neck like a shock. He brushed his thumb across her lips, lightly.

He didn’t say anything else. He just turned- quickly, jerkily, precipitously, like a marionette with half the strings cut- and walked up the road.

She watched him go, the dust stirred up, then settling back in his footprints.


End file.
